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This episode is sponsored by Calibrate iq. First, a disclaimer. In the interest of being transparent, I created Calibrate iq. It's my app and I built it because I wasn't satisfied with any of the other risk tolerance tools on the market. I found that other tools didn't work the way I wanted them to. They focus too much on risk preference rather than time horizon. They're clunky and overcomplicated and they're too expensive for what they do. And they aren't user friendly for clients. I designed Calibrate IQ to be simple, easy to use, and low cost. It lets you send a single magic link to any client you want to survey. Clients fill out a simple survey that takes less than two minutes. Once that's done, you can automatically generate an investment policy statement instantly and deliver a beautiful branded report to the client. It lets you customize reports with your logo and brand colors, and you can even add your own custom investment preferences to the questionnaire. If you're tired of expensive risk tolerance tools that overthink the process, try CalibrateIQ. It's $9 a month with a seven day free trial. Give it a try at CalibrateIQ app again. That's CalibrateIQ app. Hey everyone. Welcome to Opposite Impact where we talk operations and marketing for independent financial advisors building a lifestyle practice. I'm your host Michael Reynolds and today's topic is Should I give up on my ria? So this one's going to be more of a little pep talk. Pretty short, pretty basic, and pretty simple, but it's a little bit of a pep talk. And the reason I'm doing this is because I sometimes see advisors out there. And when I say out there, I mean in online forums and communities and all the groups I'm in and they talk about, hey, I'm struggling. I just launched my ria. I may be six months to a year in and I don't have the traction I expected and my bills aren't getting paid and I feel like I need to just close my RIA and get a regular job somewhere because I'm struggling and I'm not making it work and I'm running out of money. That's the. There's different variations of that, but that's the gist of what I see from advisors that are struggling with this. And I also recently met with an advisor for a consulting session. I do consulting sessions for advisors and we talked about this exact issue. This advisor that I spoke with again approximately a year ish into the practice not getting as much traction as he expected. Racking up debt, things like that, just struggling with the financial part of it. And he was saying, I don't know if it's time for me to close. Should I close my RIA and just move on to something else? I feel like it's time to close it up. And we talked it through a little bit, and I encourage this advisor to not rush to close the RIA and instead work on getting something to supplement this timeframe as a bridge before you really get traction. So a lot of times I see advisors, they're so focused on business has to succeed. I gotta get momentum, I gotta get off the ground. And if it doesn't, then that means it failed. And it's a binary situation. Oh, I either succeed or I fail. And there's so much gray area in between. And so when I was talking with this advisor, we talked through it a bit, and I was like, you know what? It sounds to me like you love being a financial advisor. You love running your ria, you love owning your business. This is what you love to do. And he's like, yeah, absolutely. I'm like, let's not think in terms of it succeeded or it failed. Let's think in terms of how can you build a bridge until it takes off? How can you build a bridge to get you to the other side where you can start running again? And we talk through just some really simple scenarios where it means supplementing your income enough to pay the bills until you can get to the other side. And this seems really obvious, like you're thinking, yeah, of course, just get something to pay the bills and make it until you get some traction and are supporting yourself with your ria, it seems obvious. But when you're in the thick of the situation itself, and when you're in the thick of trying to build your REA and feeling like you're struggling and hitting a wall, it's sometimes hard to think bigger and think out of outside that frame of reference. And so this is my pep talk to any advisor who is struggling to launch an RIA and is thinking, oh, should I just hang it up and close it and get something else. If you love what you're doing and you love being an RIA owner and this is what you want to do, then keep going, but supplement your income with something else. There are lots of ways advisors can supplement income to pay the bills until they get the momentum they need to really be full time in their RIA from a financial standpoint. So there's Organizations out there that do that hire advisors part time for hourly work to supplement what they're doing. For example, SmartPath is one I think Origin used to be one I've heard of before. Nectarine. There are organizations out there that provide hourly planning or planning as a part of employee benefits and they hire advisors to do hourly part time work. And it's fairly straightforward work. You can do it in the time you have in between working with their ria. You've got the time, so fill in the gaps and make some money. You could also work at H and R Block or doing tax prep or something like that. If you have some tax experience, you can get a job that's not even in the financial services sector. Get something random. The point is, do something simply to fill in the gaps in cash flow. Do something temporarily for the next year or two if you have to, to pay the bills so that you're not struggling with money. And that gives you room to breathe. That gives you room to figure out, hey, I'm going to work on getting more clients, I'm going to slowly build my client base, I'm going to slowly increase my revenue and it takes the pressure off. When you're so pressured to get clients and build your RIA as quickly as possible, it often is counterproductive. It shows up in the way you present yourself to prospects. It can give off a vibe that can be a little bit desperate or intense in a bad way. You want to take that pressure off. So do whatever you have to do. Get a part time job, even if it's just at a random retail store. Whatever it is, you get a part time job doing something so that it's enough to let you coast and pay the bills so you're not struggling. And that will free up your attention to really focus on your ria. So again, no earth shattering advice here, just a pep talk for anyone out there who is struggling, who is saying, you know what? I feel like I've got to close my RIA because I'm not making it. You can make it. Just fill in the gaps with any income you can find. Take the pressure off and then breathe and focus on your RIA and take your time and build it properly. You can do this. This is a fantastic business, it's a fantastic profession. It's super fulfilling. Once you get the ball rolling and you get the momentum, it is extremely stable and can be great income. You just have to get there and it takes time and persistence. So that's my pep talk for anybody out there struggling with this today. And by the way, I want to offer something as well. This is the offer I made to this advisor I'm referencing in this conversation. If you're out there struggling and you feel like you just need some help, I do selective pro bono consulting for any advisor who's truly struggling. So if that's you, if you really just are in a spot where you just need some help and you don't know what else to do, maybe it's marketing help or operational stuff or talking through your sales process or whatever it is, anything that you need help with, I'm happy to do a pro bono consulting hour with you to give you as much feedback as I can to help you. So if that's you, if that's the case, feel free to reach out to me, MichaelReynolds.com, send me a note through my website and just say, hey, I heard about your pro bono consulting. I'm in this situation. I need some help and I'm happy to help you. So take advantage of that if you want to. That's@michaelreynolds.com, fill out the contact form to send me a message on that. All right, that's my pep talk. You can do this. Fill in the gaps. You can make it. It's an awesome profession and you're probably closer than you think. All right. Hope that was helpful today. If you have any other questions, always reach out on my website, which is michaelreynolds.com that is my advisor facing website for consulting. A lot of resources there, too. Free stuff you can find to help you with marketing and process and operations. And always happy to help. All right with that. Have a great day. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time. Sam.